| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 95.3

You have not been recognized as a subscriber to JAH online. About 126 words from this article are provided below; about 347 words remain.

If you are a individual member of the Organization of American Historians, you may:: • login here if you have already registered for online access.; • Or if you're already logged in register your subscription.
• Set up your online account for the first time.
If you are not a member of the Organization of American Historians, you can:: • Join the OAH and receive many member benefits including print and electronic issues of the Journal of American History.
• Purchase a research pass to gain two-hour access to the entire History Cooperative web site. You will have full access to current issues of the Journal of American History (86.1-present). Note: the Research Pass does not provide access to JSTOR's holdings of the Journal of American History.
Instititutions can:: • Subscribe to this journal and receive print and electronic issues.
• Activate your existing subscription so that we recognize your IP number ranges.

| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 95.3 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

American Sovereigns: The People and America's Constitutional Tradition before the Civil War. By Christian G. Fritz. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008. xii, 427 pp. $80.00, ISBN 978-0-521-88188-3.)

American Sovereigns, by the legal scholar Christian G. Fritz, is an able contribution to the growing literature on "popular constitutionalism," a body of scholarship contending that early Americans believed "the people" had the right to shape and interpret constitutions and laws through methods outside formal political and legal systems. This scholarship calls into question traditional legal history and theory that confines constitutionalism to the arena of courts and judicial opinion. Here, Fritz acts both as practitioner and critic, attempting to historicize popular constitutionalism more precisely and correct the static models posited by other legal scholars.

. . .

There are about 347 more words in this article. Please log in (or, if you are not yet an authorized user, please go to the User Setup page) to gain full access rights. Or if you're already logged in register your subscription.